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Self-verifi cation: The Search for Coherence
... and guides individuals through inter and intrapersonal processes (Leary & Tangney, 2003;Markus & Wurf, 1987;Vazire & Wilson, 2012). Research suggests that people maintain generally positive and favorable self-views (Sedikides & Gregg, 2008;Taylor & Brown, 1988) and achieve a coherent and stable self-concept by integrating various self-aspects and aligning experiences with selfviews (Greenwald, 1980;Swann et al., 2003). Prior research has made analogies to formal computational models of knowledge representation when considering self-concepts, such as associative semantic networks (Anderson & Bower, 1973;Bower & Gilligan, 1979) or hierarchical knowledge structures (Kihlstrom et al., 1988;Marsh & Shavelson, 1985;McConnell, 2011;Schell et al., 1996). ...
... Our trait network approach sheds light on how self-concept positivity may be linked with self-concept coherence. Decades of research suggest that individuals are motivated to hold both positive (Taylor & Brown, 1988) and coherent (i.e., noncontradictory; Swann et al., 2003) self-views. One possibility is that people may simultaneously accomplish these dual motives by evaluating most favorably and consistently on traits with more perceived dependencies. ...
... By permitting favorable evaluations on downstream dependents, evaluating oneself favorably on higher outdegree traits may thus simultaneously maximize coherence and propagate positivity. While prior psychological (Alicke & Sedikides, 2009;Dunning, 1999;Swann et al., 2003) and neuroscientific research (Beer, 2007;Hughes & Zaki, 2015;Sharot & Garrett, 2016) has described motivations for either positivity or coherence, our findings extend these insights by characterizing how self-concept positivity and coherence may mutually depend on people's beliefs about trait dependency relations. ...
How people self-reflect and maintain a coherent sense of self is an important question that spans from early philosophy to modern psychology and neuroscience. Research on the self-concept has not yet developed and tested a formal model of how beliefs about dependency relations amongst traits may influence self-concept coherence. We first develop a network-based approach, which suggests that people’s beliefs about trait relationships contribute to how the self-concept is structured (Study 1). This model describes how people maintain positivity and coherence in self-evaluations, and how trait interrelations relate to activation in brain regions involved in self-referential processing and concept representation (Study 2 and Study 3). Results reveal that a network-based property theorized to be important for coherence (i.e., outdegree centrality) is associated with more favorable and consistent self-evaluations and decreased ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) activation. Further, participants higher in self-esteem and lower in depressive symptoms differentiate between higher and lower centrality positive traits more in self-evaluations, reflecting associations between mental health and how people process perceived trait dependencies during self-reflection. Together, our model and findings join individual differences, brain activation, and behavior to present a computational theory of how beliefs about trait relationships contribute to a coherent, interconnected self-concept.
... Apart from their partner, romantic attachment tends to influence the way people perceive their bodies too. In a study conducted by Swann, Rentfrow, and Guinn (2003), it was observed that feedback one gets from their romantic partners tends to influence the way they evaluate themselves. ...
Body image satisfaction is appreciating our body the way it is and evaluating it positively. One's romantic attachment style with their partner may impact how one judges their own body, and this study attempts to examine that hypothesis. The present study looks at romantic attachment and its effect on body image satisfaction, with self-discrepancy playing the moderator's role. Romantic attachment was measured through avoidance and anxiety dimensions along with trust, commitment, intimacy, physical proximity, support, and partner's suggestions on dressing and looks. Individuals in the age group of 18-25 in a romantic relationship (N=170) were part of the sample. The survey included scales on body image satisfaction, self-discrepancy and romantic attachment, circulated and administered via an online questionnaire Correlations results revealed that attachment styles and specifiers of romantic relationships correlate highly with body satisfaction.
Regression results indicated a high impact with attachment-related emerging as the single most impactful predictor for the model. In a period where romantic relationships are becoming very important in young adults' lives, this study probes into the possibility of romantic relationships affecting body image issues.
... Identity is a feature of regulation of human's psychosocial functioning [5,12,51]. It is characterized by the pursuit of coherence, individuality, and self-awareness of the basic manifestations of the internal personal self 'I \ Me' -as indicators of life adaptation effectiveness and mental health [24,34,54]. ...
The article describes the clinical psychometrical research about internal reliability of Inventory of Psychological Gender Estimation with established normalized scales for population with mental disorders, and its thematic validity with Musical Identity Test scales for condition and independence between 2 diagnostic tools’ scores, for the duration of clinical musical psychological diagnosis and clinical music therapy for mental disorders.
... The presented model needs empirical verification. Notwithstanding, it could serve as further support for the hypothesis that embracing uncertainty associated with professional social validation of creativity could be supported by strong and stable self-concept of the creator (see Karakowsky et al. 2020;Swann Jr. et al. 2003). Along with the development of creators' competences, personal identity and understanding of uncertainty as a permanent element of creative work are strengthened (Carabine 2013;Tracey and Hutchinson 2016). ...
This chapter focuses on the role and value of not knowing for creativity, learning and development. More specifically, it proposes a typology of states that are conducive, in different ways, for creative learning, including certain knowing, uncertain not knowing, uncertain knowing, and certain not knowing. They are discussed, in turn, in relation to four associated experiences: trust, anxiety, curiosity and wonder, respectively. Towards the end, two models are proposed that specify how and when these experiences contribute to the process of creative learning. The first is focused on macro stages, the second on micro processes. While the former starts from uncertain not knowing, goes through the interplay between uncertain knowing and certain not knowing, and ends in certain knowledge, the processual model reveals the intricate relations between these experiences in each and every instance of creative learning. The developmental and educational implications of revaluing not knowing as a generate state are discussed in the end.KeywordsUncertaintyKnowledgeAnxietyTrustCuriosityWonderCreative learning
... Another self-motive that has been extensively researched is that of selfverification (Swann, 1983;Swann, Rentfrow, & Guinn, 2003). Self-verification theory states that people are intrinsically motivated to confirm their pre-existing self-views, positive or negative. ...
p>This thesis examined the novel proposal that for insecure individuals, regulation of self-esteem is contingent on fulfilment of affect-regulation goals. Specifically, individuals with high attachment anxiety depend on interpersonal approval and affection, whereas those with high avoidance, although they defensively deny attachment needs, depend on validating their agency and self-reliance.
Four studies examined the influence of attachment patterns on self-esteem regulation. Study 1 showed that for insecure compared to secure individuals, global self-esteem was more closely connected to specific interpersonal or agentic self-views. Study 2 and 3 examined feedback-seeking patterns. Secure individuals were more open to, and chose, positive over negative feedback. High-anxious individuals pursued interpersonal feedback but chose negative feedback when it was offered. Dismissing individuals (high avoidance, low anxiety) sought positive hypothetical feedback about self-reliance but negative feedback across all domains when it was offered.
Study 4 examined day-to-day self-esteem regulation using daily diaries. High-anxious individuals exhibited the most fluctuation in self-esteem as a function of daily rejection and positive partner feedback, and reacted negatively to negative interpersonal feedback. High-avoidant individuals did not self-enhance by taking on board positive competence feedback. Instead, they exhibited the least boost to self-esteem after positive interpersonal feedback but lower self-esteem after daily rejection.
Overall, findings supported high-anxious individuals’ reliance on interpersonal sources for self-esteem regulation. High-avoidant individuals’ reliance on agentic sources was inconsistently supported, but their vulnerability to acceptance and rejection implies incomplete defences. These findings have implications for relationship functioning, work performance, and vulnerability to depression. Attachment theory provides a valuable framework for understanding individual differences in self-esteem regulation.</p
... In turn, self-evaluation motives (or simply self-motives) are self-regulatory motivational processes "relevant to the development, maintenance, and modifications of selfviews" (Gregg, Hepper, & Sedikides, 2011, p. 840). The four cardinal self-motives are self-enhancement (i.e., the strive to see oneself positively; Alicke & Sedikides, 2009), self-verification (i.e., the urge to confirm one's pre-existing self-views; Swann, Rentfrow, & Guinn, 2003), self-assessment (i.e., the motivation to know what one is honestly and genuinely like; Trope, 1986), and self-improvement (i.e., the desire to possess information which may be useful in the attempts to make oneself a person better than one currently is; Taylor, Neter, & Wayment, 1995). ...
Self-esteem refers to a person's evaluation of their own worth. The best-known form is global self-esteem: general, dispositional, and consciously accessible self-evaluation. Psychologists have argued that self-esteem is important because it signals how well accepted or culturally valued one is. Accordingly, people are motivated to seek and maintain high self-esteem using diverse strategies. Most people have relatively high self-esteem, although levels vary across the life span and depend on experiences of interpersonal acceptance. Although self-esteem was long assumed to dictate many life outcomes, the evidence is mixed: self-esteem level influences interpersonal relationships, well-being and some psychopathologies, but not other outcomes. For several outcomes, self-esteem fragility or narcissism are more relevant than self-esteem level. Understanding the complexities of self-esteem can be valuable for informing clinical treatment.
Who would feel confident being constantly evaluated? How do artists or scientists embrace the uncertainty linked to their work’s social validation? In the first part of the chapter, I present meanders related to the inevitable evaluation process of professional and eminent creators. Then, I propose a theoretical model of how creators tame the uncertainty of being under radars and dealing with doubts about the results of favorable or negative evaluations of the field. The presented hypothetical mechanism combines contextual factors with individual differences to indicate the crucial role of creative self-concept, mainly social and personal identity, in creativity’s social certification incessant cycle. In summary, educational and research considerations related to the proposed model are outlined.KeywordsSocial validationFieldProfessional creativityCreative self-conceptPersonal identitySocial identity
People experience instances of social feedback not as isolated events, but as interdependent experiences with potential implications for their entire self-concept. Here we examine the neurobiological processes involved in maintaining a positive and coherent self-concept while incorporating social feedback. We present a network model that describes how the brain represents information about the dependency relations amongst traits, how feedback propagates across the system of self-beliefs to maintain global consistency, and how updating from negative feedback is constrained to avoid changes to self-beliefs that lead to loss of overall positivity and coherence. A key prediction of this model is that people will be less likely to change self-beliefs for traits that have many other traits that depend upon them. To test our model, we scanned human participants using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they completed a self-evaluation task and received trait-by-trait social feedback. Consistent with our predictions, participants were less likely to change their self-views for traits that had more dependencies, and they learned more rapidly from positive than negative feedback. Processing in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) during feedback reflected these behavioral effects: vmPFC activation was not only greater for feedback that was more positive than expected, but negative feedback for traits with many dependencies was associated with less activation, consistent with the vmPFC’s role in constraining updating from negative feedback with greater implications for other self-beliefs. These results suggest that vmPFC processing while receiving social feedback may play a role in maintaining positivity and coherence of the self-concept.
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